Khearia's Sun

XVI

ㅤHe could as well have been a young boy, leisurely walking through his home, at that moment.

ㅤJames tested his tongue in his mouth, he'd spent so much time talking in a common accent that he worried he'd lost his old voice. He bit it in frustration. If he was going to get any respect in this place, he was going to have to use his old noble drawl. Thankfully, he'd had Alex around for long enough to intimately remember how to pronounce every syllable— even swear words, though it was greatly unusual for a noble to use them. He supposed he just pissed Alex off that much.

ㅤHe corrected his posture as they walked, carefully allowing his thorough-bred arrogance to manoeuvre himself, each step punctuated with purpose.

ㅤThomas stopped and knocked on a door, receiving a low; "Come in". He held the door open for James but did not follow him inside, clicking it shut behind him.

ㅤ"Your Majesty." James greeted, tasting the foreign familiar way his mouth moved over the words. He wasn't sure he liked it.

ㅤThe king was sitting at his grand dark wood desk, the window shuttered closed behind him for privacy, leaving the room too dim for James' comfort. He felt a flare of regret burn him, every time he'd used that solution his eyes had permanently dimmed colour, it left James in an almost grey world— the colours only just recognisable to him when he concentrated. All of that was necessary to hide, but it meant nothing if he got caught in the end.

ㅤDuke Chamberlain stood near the king's desk, as well as another man that James didn't recognise.

ㅤ"Julian." King William acknowledged, James grit his teeth at the name, "This is Harrison, my closest aide. All information in this palace goes through him, he's a valuable asset."

ㅤHarrison bowed to James and he found the interaction bitter. No one had bowed to him since he was a child, it was an act of forced submission simply by birthright. Life on the streets had changed his attitude forever.

ㅤ"When will I get Eris back?" James asked, point blank. He wasn't interested in dancing around subjects like nobles typically do, much to the duke's displeasure.

ㅤ"We need to decide what we're going to do before we can talk about that." the king told him. "The situation has only got more complicated since you've appeared, alive."

ㅤ"I'm not sure why you say that, Your Majesty." James gently approached the topic. "I can follow through with your request and you can finish what you wished to do. Then, I'll be on my way."

ㅤThe king slowly shook his head, his old wrinkled eyes weary.

ㅤ"You're a rightful heir to the throne." King William explained. "Once we kill Fabian— if we can kill Fabian, that is— then someone else is going to have to rule in his place. Otherwise it'll be chaos."

ㅤJames' heart dropped. "Surely you don't mean me?"

ㅤ"Why not you?" the duke chimed in, "There's no one better. Your legitimacy would never come into question so there'd never be a fight for succession amongst your distant relatives. It would make the transition as peaceful as possible."

ㅤJames didn't know what to say. He'd lost all interest in succession the day the palace had burned down, he avoided that place like the plague. He was happy to do his royal duty by cleaning up the streets for the better of the people, but politics was entirely out of the question for him, he was more than happy for Fabian to do that instead.

ㅤ"I think you should tell us what happened that day."

ㅤIt was inevitable that King William would ask, he was friends with his father after all. James had never told a soul what he'd seen and, at some point in his life, he started to doubt if it all had actually ever happened. It felt so far away that he wasn't sure if he was truly Julian or if he was just a scared orphan boy that made up that fantasy to survive. Only the repulsive looking burn marks on his arm kept him grounded in reality.